Re: [tor-talk] Phones for Tor

[grarpamp <grarpamp@xxxxxxxxx>]

>>> http://www.cryptophone.de/en/products/mobile/

> This phone appears to be Windows-based.

We have some trust in the MS stack concerning
ability to execute code and move packets properly.
Sniffing and sending the cleartext... that's an uknown
but is reasonably verifiable by watching the network.

> I see that they are banging on about their FOSS on
> every web page on their site

They give away the source. There's some blurbs about verifying
their published binary hash with what you compile. However it's
unclear if the binary on the *phone* is meant to verifiably match
yours, if you can upload yours to the phone, etc. For over $1000
per endpoint in a mesh, that's not a solution for us.
Reimplementing it is.

> that the whole software is based on the Windows-platform.

I don't like cryptophone due to the cost and non-community
model. But they do offer an Android unit now.

> Also, it looks as though the whole Cryptophone's setup is centralised

That too. You should be able to do this with any street phone
having ARM or whatever ported processor.

> Interesting feature is the Baseband firewall

I saw that but didn't get what it is. Please tell...

> Don't forget stock android has code [...]

My understanding is Android is Linux, ie: Linux has been
ported to run on the phone processor (ARM?).
So I'm not seeing a reason to use Android proper, where
Linux plus any driver blobs stripped for use from Android
could suffice. Perhaps as an underground project if use of
said blobs that way would violate blobs license.

> Don't even know if anyone has truly audited android.

Unless it involves money or rep, auditing is largely a myth.

> There are some crypto programs you can install but it requires
> the other party to have the program as well.

This is not a problem in this community.
And a proper app would recognize your incoming number
and use that app when you call people who aren't techs
(friend/family) but told to install it under threat of no calls.

> I'd have better luck buying burn phones for people than
> getting them to install software and use it properly..

For them, yes. For you, no, your graph will instantly point
to you. With that, encrypted content is your last bastion.

> fancy menus which don't tell me much

As in my former note, all we really want is opensource voice/SMS
encryption over the cell network, preferably without a data plan
(but not required).
Because cell's coverage area is better than wifi (which we can
already use for crypted wifi to wifi with any old app of the day,
(provided access to the mic and speaker) but not to interoperate
with cell, see the former data plan for that).
Everything after that is likely to be much easier... full disk encryption
of data, call lists, texts, mails, metadata, etc.

Maybe this is not the best tech list for that question.
Any ideas on that?
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